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Developmental biology is the study of the process by which animals and plants grow and develop. Developmental biology also encompasses the biology of regeneration , asexual reproduction , metamorphosis , and the growth and differentiation of stem cells in the adult organism.
Ecological evolutionary developmental biology [c] integrates research from developmental biology and ecology to examine their relationship with evolutionary theory. [78] Researchers study concepts and mechanisms such as developmental plasticity, epigenetic inheritance, genetic assimilation, niche construction and symbiosis. [79] [80]
This glossary of developmental biology is a list of definitions of terms and concepts commonly used in the study of developmental biology and related disciplines in biology, including embryology and reproductive biology, primarily as they pertain to vertebrate animals and particularly to humans and other mammals.
In developmental biology, pattern formation refers to the generation of complex organizations of cell fates in space and time. The role of genes in pattern formation is an aspect of morphogenesis, the creation of diverse anatomies from similar genes, now being explored in the science of evolutionary developmental biology or evo-devo.
Morphogenesis (from the Greek morphê shape and genesis creation, literally "the generation of form") is the biological process that causes a cell, tissue or organism to develop its shape.
Morphogenesis of Drosophila fruit flies is intensively studied in the laboratory. A morphogen is a substance whose non-uniform distribution governs the pattern of tissue development in the process of morphogenesis or pattern formation, one of the core processes of developmental biology, establishing positions of the various specialized cell types within a tissue.
The developmental equivalence of these cells is usually established via transplantation and cell ablation experiments. As embryos mature, more complex fate determination occurs as structures appear, and cells differentiate, beginning to perform specific functions.
In developmental biology, animal embryonic development, also known as animal embryogenesis, is the developmental stage of an animal embryo. Embryonic development starts with the fertilization of an egg cell (ovum) by a sperm cell (spermatozoon). [1] Once fertilized, the ovum becomes a single diploid cell known as a zygote.